San Francisco Chronicle

Though it’s not any better than most romantic comedies, Voicemails for Isabelle has aspects that are genuinely interesting. It touches on ideas and suggests nuances of psychology that feel serious, even though the movie itself does not.

It is Jessie’s show, and Cusack, the two-time Academy Award nominee, makes the most of it. There’s one scene under a tree atop a hill that harks back to her origins in “Toy Story 2” and is as moving as any scene in the franchise.

This “Robin Hood” transitions into contemplative, philosophical registers while never slacking in suspense. It is, at its core, a redemption story, simple in persuasive ways yet richly complicated by difficult personalities and atrocious revelations. Coincidences that would seem narratively convenient in lesser narratives are imbued with a classical feeling of fate.

In terms of pure, unhinged action, “The Furious” is the best of its type from the last decade.

It’s a cracking good thriller.

México 86 may be a little too inside baseball — er, fútbol — for some, but its light breezy comedy goes down well.

It has all the excitement of a movie about crime, but if you took all the crime out of it, it would still work as a love story. Director Adam Rehmeier and screenwriter Tom Dean are not trying to create something mythic here, but something small-scale and affecting.

Utilizing Magnason’s voluminous supply of home movies and supplementing it with cinematographer Pablo Alvarez-Mesa’s spectacular footage of Icelandic landscapes, Dosa portrays the passing of a way of life that hints at an uncertain planetary future.

Freed from the burden of contemporary relevance, “Masters of the Universe” succeeds by doing something refreshingly straightforward: telling a rousing fantasy adventure with conviction, humor and heart.

While the movie may not get the overall music business as right as it could have, Carney sure can cut the beast where it hurts. His blend of ruthless, observant Irish humor and admirably restrained vein of sentimentality doesn’t make for the cuddliest cinematic singalong, but it delivers a message every daydream rock star ought to hear.